CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.

"Thomas forgot the alphabet when he made the ouija board.
Somehow, he forgot that V came after U, and instead put B. We
laughed quite hard when he announced that he spelled a letter
wrong. How do you spell a letter wrong when you’re just writing
the alphabet?"
—Happy Villain

"Halloween is indeed a Pagan festival,
as severe Christians declare.... It's Pagan not because of witches but
because of pumpkins, whose faces flicker with an inner light.
Animism: character in the nonhuman, soul in vegetables." --James
Hillman, The Force of Character

When I recite this quotation, I add a very pregnant pause before the word pumpkins, to build the suspense, and I pronounce pumpkins
so as to maximize its spookiness, blowing it up in size with that
initial syllabic "pump" of air. It's great fun to utter pumpkin
as if it's the vegetable equivalent of the boogey man! With the
right intonations (i.e., dead seriousness with an undertone of
insanity, like you're "out of your gourd"), the word pumpkin
can sound like a curse. Spooky graveyards are so passé -- imagine
the terror of having to cross through a frightening pumpkin patch on
the way home at midnight! The sound to dread, of course, is the
*snap* of the vine (or "tendril," to those initiated), for then the
ominous orange fruit with demonic flesh has broken free of its umbilic
tie to Hell. (Movie announcer voice:) This Halloween, prepare to
get squashed! Or, This Halloween, we're all plucked!

When a nickel's worth a dollar
And gold ain't worth a dime
When they build a ship on waters
That will take you back in time

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:

When a nickel's worth a fiver
And gold ain't worth a quarter
When they build a ship on waters
That will make the trip seem shorter

* Payphones used to take dimes, but now they take quarters. Isn't
it time to update song lyrics to reflect the realities of
inflation? Alas, it's vastly easier to rhyme the word "dime" than
the word "quarter," but here at Inflationary Lyrics Headquarters we
have risen to the challenge. Please join the fun and share your
own inflationary lyrics, with both the "before" and "after" versions!

[T]he oldest trick in the book is the one where, in a fist fight, you pretend you’re doubled over in pain but really you’re preparing to whip around and blind your enemy with a fistful of dirt. —Micah, “Oldest Trick in the Book,” AmishRobot.com (2004)

Ever thought about how "ooh" and "aah" are ubiquitous backing vocal
phonemes, but "ayy" and "eee" and short "a" (as in "hat") are rarely if
ever heard? If you want to entertain yourself during a commute, try
imagining '50s or '60s pop songs with some of these "alternate vowel
sound" backing vocals. One particularly appealing image for me is a
chorus of Fonzies singing "ayyy"s behind "Don't Worry Baby".

"I will praise [my friend Max Van Dusen] for the twenty-four letters of
his alphabet. Of all the writers I ever heard about, he uses the
best alphabet." —Thomas Merton, Road To Joy: The Letters Of Thomas Merton To New And Old Friends

Nothing's sacred...
You draw the bottom line
with a dollar sign
Change of opinion...
At the drop of a dime

ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION:

Nothing's sacred...
You draw and quarter
a would-be thwarter
Change of opinion...
At the flip of a quarter

* Payphones used to take dimes, but now they take quarters. Isn't
it time to update song lyrics to reflect the realities of
inflation? Alas, it's vastly easier to rhyme the word "dime" than
the word "quarter," but here at Inflationary Lyrics Headquarters we
have risen to the challenge. Please join the fun and share your
own inflationary lyrics, with both the "before" and "after" versions!

Saint Pompa taught her followers to "Raise your eyebrows to Heaven and
curl your lips in prayer to the High and Mighty." Famous for
wearing very tight-fitting pantaloons and children's footwear (for
purposes of mortification), Saint Pompa inspired the phrases "too big
for one's britches" and "too big for one's boots." She is perhaps
best-remembered for her ecstatic hymn, "La-Di-Da."

I went to bed feeling haunted by Kurt Vonnegut, whose hateful words
echoed in my head: "I have never used semicolons. They don't do
anything, don't suggest anything."

When I finally fell asleep, I dreamed I was in college. The class
was Freshman Composition. No one there knew how to use me.
But they liked me. I was mysterious... I looked important and
well-educated. They used me over and over again. Yes, I was
in all the wrong places. And yes, I would ultimately be circled
or crossed out with red ink. But there were so many of me!
I was EVERYWHERE! I woke up refreshed. I had glimpsed my
own immortality.

My father slapped at the air and made a pfft sound. —Claire Messud, The Last Life: A Novel.

* The British expression "noise stroke gesture" (in American parlance, "noise slash gesture" or "noise/gesture") refers to the intriguing fact
that some vocal expressions seem to call for an accompanying hand
gesture. Take, for example, Pfft! No matter what its intended meaning, it virtually demands to be echoed in sign language. Have you noticed a pfft hand gesture in print? Please share!

For a variety of surprising definitions of pfft, check out my Dictionary of All-Consonant Words at OneLetterWords.com.

The "stretch portraits" in the Haunted Mansions of various Disney theme
parks tell intriguing stories that most viewers don't have time to
decode. As any visitor to the Haunted Mansion will tell you, the
portraits grow in length as the ceiling of the gallery appears to
stretch upward. The portraits initially tell a three-part story,
labeled in our illustration as A, B, and C (top, middle, bottom).
However, the story doesn't end there. The viewer's eye must then
go back up to A for a macabre and darkly humorous "epilogue."
Let's examine each portrait to decode their secrets.

On the far right of our illustration is a portrait of a distinguished
gentleman with a beard. In section A, we see the man striking a
formal pose, one hand on a lapel of his jacket and the other holding a
parchment. Section B presents a gag: the man isn't wearing
pants! Section C holds a big surprise: not only is the man in his
boxer shorts, but he's standing on a keg of dynamite, and a candle has
just lit the fuse! But the story doesn't end there.
Bringing our eyes back to the top, we see the man in a different
light. The man is obviously not surprised that he's standing upon
explosives. Indeed, he deliberately posed this way, for the
portrait painter! And that paper in his hand? We now
realize that he's holding his own suicide note. His face is calm
-- he is at peace with his own mortality and is ready to face the great
unknown.

Now let's look at the portrait to the left of the bearded man. In
section A, we see a lovely young lady posing outdoors, holding a
parasol. Section B presents a gag: the woman is balanced on a
tightrope, and it looks as if the rope might break at any moment!
Section C holds a big surprise: not only is the woman precariously
balanced, but there is a crocodile below her, hungry jaws open
wide! Yet the story doesn't end there. Bringing our eyes
back to the top, we see the lady in a new light. She is obviously
not surprised that she's standing on a tightrope. (Indeed, she
wore pink slippers for the purpose!) Her face is serene -- she is
prepared to face the jaws of death, as the painter she hired hurries to
finish his portrait!

Now let's look at the portrait to the left of the parasol lady.
In section A, we see a young businessman wearing a hat, his arms
crossed in a posture of self-assuredness. Section B presents a
gag: the young man is sitting on the shoulders of an older man!
Perhaps he is climbing his way up the corporate ladder? Section C
holds a big surprise: the older man is sitting on the shoulders of yet
another, and they're all sinking in quicksand! But the story
doesn't end there. Bringing our eyes back to the top, we see the
young man in a different light. He is obviously not surprised
that he's sinking in quicksand. Has he struggled his way to the
top to save his own life? His calm face and crossed arms point to
a different conclusion: he knows he's going down, and he is at peace
with his imminent merger with Mother Earth.

Finally, let's look at the portrait at the far left of our
illustration. In section A, we see an elderly woman wearing a
shawl, posing with a red rose. Section B presents a gag: the
woman is sitting on a tombstone! Section C holds a big surprise:
the tombstone belongs to her husband George, and it appears that he was
murdered with an axe to the head! But the story doesn't end
there. Bringing our eyes back to the top, we see the woman in a
different light. The woman obviously killed her own
husband. Indeed, she appears almost proud as she sits atop his
grave. But is something else going on? Why is she holding a
rose? If it's not for her unloved husband, could it be for
herself? Perhaps this portrait could be entitled "Arsenic and Old
Lace." The woman's own time has finally come, and she is calmly
waiting for the poison to kick in.

Looking back at the top of each portrait, we see that the old woman,
the businessman, the young lady, and the distinguished gentleman are
all (in their own unique ways) "going out on top." The point of
all these portraits seems to be that death is inevitable, so why not
take it in stride, have a little fun along the way, and go out with
bang? It's a darkly humorous philosophy that few guests to the
Haunted Mansion have the time to decipher during their brief visit to
the gallery.

I dreamed of "limpid creatures of limitless tact and tenderness who
would discuss with me a semicolon as if it were a point of honor—which,
indeed, a point of art often is," just as in THE FOREST FOR THE TREES
by Betsy Lerner.

Just as there are rainbows during the day, there can be moonbows
at night. It must be raining opposite the moon and the moon must
be nearly full and it can't be any higher than 42 degrees in the
sky. It also has to be dark. All those factors combined
together make for this atmospheric phenomenon to be fairly rare.

A moonbow
in the high desert of California. "The requirements needed to
form a 'moonbow' are similar to the requirements of the much more
common rainbow -- moonlight rather than sunlight is the light source.
Look very closely and perhaps you can see faint star trails between the
clouds in this 30 second exposure."

A night rainbow
(nachregenbogen in German) in Hammelburg, Germany. "Driving through the
fog on this spring evening, my headlight beams created this high
arching fogbow. Fogbows are more feebly colored than their Sun
illuminated counterparts (rainbows) and usually appear whitish to the
unaided eye."

"It is December, winter in Egypt. Evening there comes early, at five
o'clock the sun already slides for horizon. And right after a decline,
especially in the winter, the sky is painted in gentle colors of a rainbow."

A new Japanese wine-tasting robot
fires a beam of light into the wine, and then uses an infrared
spectrometer to analyze the reflection. It studies the chemical
composition of the wine and delivers an instant verdict about how good
it is. (From Robots.net)

Threshold is door, and it has a double
significance: border and crossing over. It indicates where one
thing ends and another begins. The border which marks the end of
the old makes possible entry into the new. ... Threshold is not,
however, only borderline; it is also crossing over. One can step
over it into the adjacent room, or, standing on it, receive him who
comes from the other side. It is something that unites, a place
of contact and encounter.
—Romano Guardini, Preparing Yourself for Mass

Did you hear the one I just made up about the Shroud of Tourette?
This unholy relic doesn't depict a face as such -- more a defacement,
with a slew of crude French words that, in their time, would have been
considered rather obscene.